


Resurfacing

by theprydonian_archivist



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Angst, Episode: s03e13 Last of the Time Lords, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-03-03
Updated: 2008-03-03
Packaged: 2018-07-15 01:08:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,248
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7199318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theprydonian_archivist/pseuds/theprydonian_archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor isn’t ready to move on just yet, even though he is. He always is.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Resurfacing

**Author's Note:**

> For Evilawyer.
> 
> Note from Versaphile, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Prydonian](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Prydonian). Deciding that it needed to have a more long-term home, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact the e-mail address on [The Prydonian collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/theprydonian/profile).

It’s when everything gets so, so quiet, the lights drop low, and the room stops spinning that he can drop against the nearest wall and slide down until he hits the bottom. 

He hit bottom days ago, refusing to wash, refusing to speak, refusing to do much of anything except stare off into space. 

He’s better now, or so he tells them. 

With the heels of his hands digging into his eyes, he tries to rub out the images of hunched over bodies and sky-reaching flames. 

How long has he been sitting here?

Somewhere, Martha is sitting down with her family, having lunch. Jack is steadily repairing what’s left to repair. 

Nothing will ever be fixed. 

There’s nothing to fix. Everything’s fine. Everything is fine, just fine. 

Fine, fine, fine. Perfectly fine. Okey-dokey. Peachy keen. Right as rain. 

He has to bite his fist in order to keep another wail from escaping his throat. He wants to punch the wall, kick the floor, scream until his throat very well bleeds, because a physical pain will distract him from this one. 

He wants to shove Martha out the door. (If she’s here then he can’t be, because if he was here, he’d make sure she wasn’t.)

He wants to rip Jack to shreds simply because he can. (The Captain, with not one mark on him, walking away with nothing gained, and nothing lost.)

He wants his life back the way it was. (Sitting alone in a cold corridor is not his idea of a good time. There are no more good times.) 

He wants to go back. 

“Even if that means being confined to a wheelchair, old and brittle?” The voice — that one voice which was never any of his own voices, yet is so familiar, so _his_ — fills him with hope. 

“Walking’s overrated.” His own voice isn’t as hoarse as he thought it would have been, for all he’s been using it lately. 

“Now you’re just speaking nonsense.”

Nonsense. Yes, he’s speaking nonsense. He’s talking to an apparition, a ghost, a figment of his imagination. He would call him a piece of undigested beef, but he hadn’t eaten anything for a while. The Master, his Master, in his black satin robe is leaning against the wall, staring down into the rooms past the interior lights. Nonsense, he knows, but nonsense of the most glorious kind.

The Master’s arms are crossed, and one foot is slightly in front of the other. They are bare. Completely bare. He can’t take his eyes away from the perfectly white and delicate foot poised so nonchalantly by his side. He wants to reach out and cover it with his hand. He knows, though, there is nothing there to feel. 

“What are you thinking about?” It’s the first question he thinks to ask. 

“The same thing you are. Obviously.”

“Obviously.” He mumbles into the thick, stale air. "Obviously."

There were so many nights when the Master would slink out of bed, when a smooth sidle and the hum of a tune would draw out stories from long ago, memories and questions that would bring them together, even if he kept his word and never spoke. They were together that whole year. 

“You’re only temporary.” One end of the black satin belt is trailing the floor. He watches it move ever so slightly with the Master’s breathing. Barely noticeable at all, yet anything to notice is worth noticing. 

“I’m quite pointless.” He watches the Master’s toes curl angrily against the metal grate of the floor. “There’s no fun in haunting someone who knows they’re being haunted. Though, does it count as haunting when you’ve been conjured?”

“I can’t admit to being a little lonely?”

“Enough to try and make yourself mad?” The foot flickers. Gone-but-here. 

“Have I? Gone mad?” He whispers to the foot. 

“No. Just extremely pathetic.” 

He remembers the feel of smooth, young skin falling against his own. The scratch of grass against his back. The warmth of two suns coating his face as he looks up into the sky. They were side by side. Always talking, always dreaming. Together. 

“You could’ve regenerated.”

“And doesn’t that hurt?”

There is a bare foot next to him, toes tapping quietly on the floor. It’s so quiet, he can’t hear it. Nobody else could understand. Nobody. Where that foot has been, the worlds it has traveled over, the times it has ran through. The chase. The pacing. The languid stretch it made when perfectly content to sit at home and gloat. Does it hurt? Does it?

"I need you back.” He looks away, off into the empty corridor. 

“Why?”

He doesn’t have an answer that isn’t “Because." 

“Do you think that having me back is going to solve everything?”

It’s a start. 

“It won’t, you know.”

He’s still staring down the corridor. 

“It won’t.”

He knows that. Of course he knows that. But he wants him back. He wants to hold him and love him and tell him all about what happened since the War. He wants to appreciate him. He wants to make him better. To travel the universe together. Just the two of them. He wants to be the way they were, all those years ago. To get back what he never took time to really and truly love. Adolescence was funny like that. 

I’m sorry, he wants to say. So, so sorry. 

For not being there.  
For leaving.  
For not trusting you.  
For running away.  
For never fighting on the same side.  
For being a righteous prat.  
For letting the drums get to you.  
For letting you get to everyone else.  
For not stopping you sooner.  
For not talking to you sooner.  
For burning your body.   
For giving up on you.  
For not finding another way.

“What could I have done?” 

“Absolutely nothing.” The Master crouches down. He is wearing his classic suit and tie. He’s wearing shoes, too, and holding on to that laser screwdriver of his. 

“So you win. I’m completely miserable and alone now. Game’s up. Come back now?” It’s supposed to be a statement, but his voice makes it seem so uncertain. 

The Master shuts his eyes and mouths something he doesn’t bother to understand. When he opens them, all of Gallifrey shines there, glowing and swirling, and so full of hope and promise. He is never getting any of that back.

The Master stands. He only really notices the shoes now. They do not shine with the softness of the black satin. They are harsh and cold. And cruel. 

“Look around you, you old fool!” The Master’s voice grates through his ears. The shoes pound down the corridor, off in the direction of the console room. 

He almost hopes to hear Jack curse, or to hear Martha scream (if she is back yet.) He almost wants the dream to be real. What would he sacrifice to get him back? His friends? This planet? He almost did, didn't he? Almost and yet . . . 

Sacrifice?

He breathes in, feeling the weight of a cold body in his arms. 

Sacrifice?

He can hear the screams of millions of people as they are shot down (ten percent) on the tiny little planet below. 

_Sacrifice?_

Never. 

The Doctor rises to his feet. He takes a look at his trainers, and wiggles his toes inside of them. Stuffing his hands in his pockets, he removes his shoes with his feet. The metal grating feels warm against his bare skin. It feels good. 

It feels good.


End file.
